I live in Vacationland so it’s never mattered that I rarely get to take an official one. When I’ve been able to have something approximating real time away from life as enjoyed everyday I usually spend it staying right here in Maine simply doing what I want without interruption from what one must necessarily and incessantly attend to. The Way Life Should Be is to practice the art of mitigating the daily grind sufficiently so one isn’t ultimately ground down to an existence where a vacation is something one longs for out of desperation for a long overdue respite.

When I’ve managed to garner some serious calendar time to visit somewhere away from our own much-desired destination point, to experience Life As It Could Be, Maine’s everyday familiar charms always prove a very hard act to follow. Its seemingly timeless environmental and iconic cultural identity is always a treasured reaffirmation upon returning “from away” as to why Maine is my never regretted long embraced chosen home.

Natural beauty similar to Maine’s still pristine aesthetic pleasures can be found elsewhere but never have I returned to the nearby majestic mouth of the Kennebec without inaudibly remarking that its ever-changing wonder rivals any nature gifted experience of beauty anywhere.

No wonder Maine’s distinctive quality of place has long been a destination point for artists. Not just those pilgriming to genuflect before nature’s primal inspiration for creating but a permanent residence for those finding Maine a place whose quietude and remoteness invites exploration of one’s own undiscovered interior vistas.

Years ago as a student at the Portland School of Art, now MECA, I and other classmates would make field trips to Boston, New York, Philadelphia and D.C. to encounter serious explorations of artistic expression. Now one doesn’t have to. Maine’s museums have seriously picked up their game. Maine’s art scene has grown beyond traditional “regional” confines and no longer needs to adhere to “local color” or representational imagery. Like much of life’s now e-borderless existence, the concerns of art made in Maine have become contemporary with art everywhere. Maine’s no longer a best kept secret retreat for “serious” pursuit of man-made aesthetic fulfillment. Rather than created here but catering to a more urbane sensibility with intended marketing elsewhere, art made here can stay put. Maine’s venues for visual art now encompass a full range of professional artistic offerings.

That’s not to say that fine art in Maine doesn’t also have serious difficulties. Here or anywhere, art’s appreciation is increasingly threatened by virtue of being at risk from a socioeconomic reality that finds itself more and more missing the whole point of the importance of traditional culture. Much of what society now venerates promotes addiction to constant stimulation seemingly irregardless of any merit. Obsessed by an overwhelming worship of consumerism, society’s come to value today’s mesmerizing means of communication more than what’s actually being communicated. Trouble is, an existence craving the immediacy of unending visual newness has little use for art’s core attributes of contemplative observation and reflection.

Many people walk around oblivious to both a natural world and an aesthetic heritage with which they have increasingly little connection. Their primary visual interest is directed towards the very, very visually crude but technologically sophisticated fleeting imagery constantly competing for attention from the palm of their hand. The aesthetically surreal “paint by number” craze of my youth still has loyal adherents but they remain an insignificant few compared to the manipulated multitude now systematically devoted to anything offered up by numerically conjured displays created solely from combined zeros and ones. Amazing as that technology is, it’s still only a virtual reality. Art at its best is all about fully experiential edification rather than simply a vicarious approximation of awareness.

Whatever its form or function, real art isn’t a mimicry of existence but a new reality. Real art, that is to say hands-on material art, offers up physical reality’s inherent attribute of an actual interaction with life. Real art, real things encountered in real time and space, makes one feel more alive and far more connected than any e-life semblance of reality.

So where is this Maine art experience?

Bath just had its first ArtWalk of the summer. They occur every third Friday of the month through September. Brunswick’s walk is every second Friday. Both avail anyone interested in real art the opportunity of direct interaction with not only the creative expression at hand but also the opportunity to directly converse with that creation’s creator.

Leave your cell phone at home and take a self-guided walk on a side of human creativeness that used to speak to a great many more people and still communicates the timeless concerns of a far more profound reverie celebrating our commonality with each other and all life-giving existence.

Today’s technological artistry is foremost about the addictive need for endless “updates” to sustain a monetarily driven creativeness. Real art, whatever its momentary marketplace prowess, has always been about an empowering enrichment there for the taking by anyone taking the time to simply and profoundly observe.

Gary Anderson lives in Bath.